New Zealand Passport Identity Referee in Australia

For a New Zealand passport application from Australia, your identity referee or witness must be 16 or older, have known you for more than a year, and hold a current or expired New Zealand passport. They cannot be family, your partner or someone at your address. An Australian passport holder, or a notary you have just met, generally cannot act.

Key takeaways

• Online applications need an identity referee; first passports by post need a witness.
• Both must hold a current or expired New Zealand passport; an Australian passport does not qualify.
• They must have known you for more than one year and be 16 or older.
• Family, including cousins, in-laws and ex-spouses, your partner and housemates are excluded.
• A notary is not part of the process, unless they happen to meet the same rules as anyone else.
• If you cannot find anyone, contact New Zealand Passports rather than using someone ineligible.

Referee or witness: which do you need?

New Zealand Passports uses two similar roles, and which one you need depends on how you apply. If you apply online, you need an identity referee. You give the referee's details in the application, and they may be asked to complete an identity check online using a RealMe login. According to New Zealand Passports, the referee does not need to sign a form or sign your photo.

If you are applying for your first passport by post or in person, you need a witness. The witness completes and signs the witness declaration on your paper form, and writes your full name, their signature and the date on the back of one of your passport photos. The eligibility rules for referees and witnesses are the same.

Point	Identity referee	Witness
When needed	Online applications	First passport by post or in person
Signs a form?	No	Yes, the witness declaration
Signs your photo?	No	Yes, name, signature and date on the back
Online check	May be asked to verify with RealMe	May be contacted to confirm
Passport they hold	Current or expired New Zealand	Current or expired New Zealand
Known you for	More than one year	More than one year

Who can be your referee or witness?

New Zealand Passports sets out the rules clearly. Your referee or witness must be aged 16 or older, have known you for more than one year (or since birth, for a child under one), hold a current or expired New Zealand passport, agree to act, and be available if the passport office calls or emails to verify details. They must not be part of your immediate or extended family, which the office says includes cousins, in-laws and ex-spouses. They must not be your partner or spouse, and must not live at the same address as you.

Notice what is not required. There is no list of professions, no requirement that the person be of particular standing, and no requirement that they live in New Zealand. An expired New Zealand passport is enough. That makes the rule simpler than the equivalent rules for UK and Canadian passports, but it also means one thing cannot be worked around: the person must be a New Zealand passport holder.

Can an Australian be my referee?

Not on the strength of an Australian passport. The rule is that the referee or witness must hold a current or expired New Zealand passport. Many people in Australia hold both, and a dual citizen with a New Zealand passport, even an expired one, can act if they meet the other rules. But an Australian friend who has never held a New Zealand passport cannot, however long they have known you.

This surprises people who have dealt with UK or Canadian passports, where rules for applicants abroad accept a wider range of passports. For New Zealand passports, the passport requirement is fixed, so start by thinking about the New Zealanders you know in Australia: colleagues, neighbours, friends from sport or community groups, or people from your old school or university.

Can a notary be my referee or witness?

Usually not. A notary you meet for an appointment has not known you for more than a year, and may not hold a New Zealand passport. Being a notary does not change either rule. The referee's role is to confirm, from personal knowledge, that you are who you say you are, which is different from a notary checking your identity documents.

A notary could act only in the same way anyone could: if they have known you for more than a year, hold a New Zealand passport, and are not family or living with you. Then they act as a person who knows you, not as a notary. For most New Zealand passport applications from Australia, you do not need a notary at all. Our guide to what a notary public does explains the work notaries do for overseas documents.

What does the referee or witness need to give?

For an online application, New Zealand Passports asks for the referee's New Zealand passport details, full name, phone number, date of birth, home address and email address. The referee may then receive a request to complete an identity check online. They need a RealMe login for this, which they will be prompted to create if they do not have one; they do not need a RealMe verified identity.

For a paper application, you give the witness's New Zealand passport details, full name, home address, date of birth and phone number. The witness completes and signs the declaration on the form and writes on the back of one of your photos. Ask them to read the form's instructions before they write anything, so the photo is not spoiled.

How do you arrange a referee from Australia?

1. Work out your application type. Online applications need a referee; a first passport by post or in person needs a witness.
2. List the New Zealanders you know. Friends, colleagues and neighbours with a current or expired New Zealand passport.
3. Check the rules for each. Known you for more than a year, 16 or older, not family, not your partner, not at your address.
4. Ask them first. They must agree to act and be available if the passport office calls or emails.
5. Collect their details. Passport number, full name, date of birth, address, phone and, for online applications, email.
6. Tell them what to expect. A possible RealMe identity check for online applications, or the form and photo for paper ones.
7. Apply as instructed. Follow New Zealand Passports' current instructions for applying from Australia.

What if you cannot find anyone?

This is common for people who moved to Australia young or who have lived here a long time and mostly know Australians. Widen the search first: New Zealand colleagues, parents from your children's school, members of a New Zealand community or sports group, or old friends now living elsewhere in Australia or back in New Zealand. The referee does not need to live near you, or even in Australia, provided they meet the rules and can be contacted.

If there is genuinely no one, New Zealand Passports says to contact it. Do that before you apply, and do not use someone who does not meet the rules, such as a cousin or a flatmate, in the hope it will not be noticed. An ineligible referee usually means delay, and giving false information on a passport application is a serious matter.

Common mistakes to avoid

The most common mistake is choosing an Australian friend with no New Zealand passport. The second is choosing a relative, forgetting that cousins, in-laws and ex-spouses count. The third is choosing a referee who is hard to reach, then missing the passport office's call or email and slowing the application. Tell your referee to expect contact, and check that the phone number and email you give are current.

A quieter mistake is booking a notary or a JP out of habit. For a New Zealand passport, the rules are about personal knowledge and a New Zealand passport, not about official status. Save the notary for documents that need one, such as a power of attorney or certified copies for use overseas. Our guide to an apostille for New Zealand covers documents that do need notarising and apostilling for use there.

Here is an illustration, not a real case.

Aroha, who moved to Melbourne as a child, is applying online to renew a long-expired New Zealand passport. Her closest friends are Australian and cannot act. She remembers that a colleague she has worked with for three years grew up in Christchurch and still has an expired New Zealand passport. The colleague agrees, gives Aroha her passport number and contact details, and completes the RealMe identity check when the email arrives.

In short

A New Zealand passport identity referee or witness must be 16 or older, have known you for more than a year, and hold a current or expired New Zealand passport, and must not be family, your partner or a housemate. An Australian passport does not qualify, and a notary generally cannot act unless they meet the same rules. Our document notarisation services page explains the documents that do need a notary.

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Not sure whether your New Zealand document needs a notary? Send us the form and its instructions, and we will explain each step before you book.